Sabra's Story
by SyeiraRaven
Summary: Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, The Crown of Dalemark and Conrad's Fate, this story is about Sabra, a girl attending an ordinary boarding school who is suddenly swept into the cloudsupported City of Singers by her twelve Singer siblin
1. Chapter 1: Home of Clouds

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Home of Clouds

"If everything is coming your way, then you're in the wrong lane."

Since she was nine, Sabra had gone to Griffinly Girls Academy. Her mother had taken her away from her sibling, and her alone, to attend the boarding school. What had become of her sisters and brothers she could only guess at, for a couple of them visited her once when she was ten, and her only family member she had seen since was her mother, who occasionally took her home through the arch in the basement of the library, and those were always Sabra's favorite times.

But her mother was dead now, and had been for years, ever since Sabra was thirteen. That was when she'd stopped speaking English. She'd never known her father, and her only family was the statue of the black horse that had been passed down for generations, now stored in her single dormitory.

Sabra was now fifteen, and friendless but for one faithful younger girl. Not that she was mean to the other girls, or them to her. She simply didn't speak. When she was younger, they had come over to eat with her or speak to her, but they had given up. Top of her class, Sabra spent most of her time in the library.

The teachers were just as bewildered by her lack of speaking—for they knew she was not mute—as they were by her origin. Her mother had often disappeared for days, weeks, or even months at a time, occasionally taking her daughter with her, and nobody knew where she went. Sabra, now a young woman herself, also sometimes vanished when she should have been in the library.

Sometimes experts—medical and other—came and tried to interview her. When questions like "what's your name?" "How old are you?" and "What are your favorite subjects?" failed to receive an answer, the interviewers weren't half as puzzled or shocked as when the question, "Where are you from?" arose.

This one Sabra always answered. She would think for a moment, gathering the word in her mouth. The interviewer would begin to repeat, "Where—" and be cut off as Sabra spoke, in a soothing hiss,

"_Aastæveristikemaera_." She always answered, not because she wanted everyone to know where she was from, but because she loved to say the name of her homeland, to feel it roll off her tongue and slid so effortlessly through her lips. And she enjoyed the look of astonishment on the receiving end.

For Sabra was not from the land where she grew up, as far as she knew. Her disappearances were to this other land, though she told no one where she went, and the only person who asked was Meera.

Meera was fourteen, a year and a grade younger than Sabra. She was shy around the other kids, but nothing could stop her from trying to get Sabra to open up. In her free time, she followed Sabra around as much as the older girl would tolerate. She studied with Sabra, ate with Sabra, chattered nonstop to Sabra, and sometimes snuck down the corridor to sleep on the floor of Sabra's room. Sabra thought Meera must find it a haven to have someone she could speak to without fear, since she seemed so scared of other kids. Sometimes Sabra spoke to her in her native language, and Meera just nodded and spoke as though she understood every word, which Sabra knew she didn't. Sometimes Sabra found the younger girl a nuisance, but for the most part she was happy to have a friend, even if she did have to slip away to visit her homeland.

"Someday," Meera declared as they sat in the library, studying, "you're going to have to take me to that hideaway of yours."

"_Ega si me nista ves,_" Sabra said with a slight smile, the equivalent of "but then I would never get away from you."

Meera laughed as though she shared the joke. "Then I'll become invisible and creep around after you." Sometimes Meera sounded eerily as though she really understood the Tongue of the Serpent.

Sabra had just begun scribbling an equation when the bell rang. She gathered her books together and started toward her English classroom, Meera turning off to her own grade's wing.

They were starting a new book, Sabra saw. She glanced at the cover: _Vanisher: A Biography of Abby Winston. _Sabra began to read. She loved books. This one proved interesting, too. It was about a young woman, Abby Winston, who had grown up in England and disappeared on her twentieth birthday, turning up ten years later in Paris, wearing a thin red dress and carrying a silver bottle. What she had been doing those ten years was anyone's guess, for she was put in a mental care institute for six years, until she disappeared again and never returned. Sabra was fascinated with the author's opinions of what had happened to the woman and finished the book in one night.

The next day was Saturday, with no school. Sabra woke early, before they were allowed to be out in the corridors, and let herself slide sideways into a brighter, clearer world. She walked directly past Mrs. Fairfield without the teacher so much as glancing at her, and continued into the library on a direct route, not even pausing to follow the corridors around walls or to turn handles and open locked doors. She came to the basement of the library, where nobody ever went—she suspected nobody else even knew it was there, as there were no doors leading to it that she knew of. It was a huge chamber, with walls, ceiling, and floor inscribed with thousands, possibly millions, of runes and symbols. No doors led into it, and it was empty save for the tall stone arch that stood in the middle of the room. The marks on the arch weren't stationary as the ones around the room were—they were constantly in a moving stream, like snakes twining lovingly around the stone. It was through this arch that Sabra stepped.

The world beyond was blindingly bright, until Sabra stepped sideways out of the lines of power that had concealed her. She blinked several times, and shook her long black hair back to survey the fields of grass and wild flowers that spread out before her, changing abruptly into a roaring river several hundred yards away. Even from this distance, she could hear the background hum of its coursing waters, and they swept towards the ocean.

Sabra folded her legs and sat Indian-style in the long grass, hands on her knees, as she relaxed into a meditation state, soothing the magic that had coiled within her during the crossing. She drew in deep breaths of a cool, soft breeze, reveling in the clean air after having breathed the choked, polluted air from the school. Her keen ears, which used to be made fun of because of their slight points, picked up the distant screech of a bird of prey wheeling high above.

Sabra removed her hands from her lap. A word whispered in her mind, a symbol formed by her hands, and a bright red apple materialized in her palm. Smiling, Sabra stood and began wandering toward the river, taking a bite of the apples as she walked.

This was what she loved about her homeland, never worrying about schoolwork or other kids and teachers, simply enjoying the wildness of it. And because the time passed differently here from at school, she could spend hours under the soft sunlight here and be back after only a few minutes. Sometimes, however, she came here from home to find several weeks had gone by here when only several days had passed on Earth. She kept track of the days and moons on a miniature calendar that changed constantly, which she had acquired from a merchant dwarf.

Pausing before taking another bite of the apple, Sabra said, "Is that mouse particularly speedy or what?" in her native language.

A muffled reply came from about ten feet to her right. "No, just stringy to chew."

The long grass rustled, and a small grey cat leapt out of it to settle itself comfortably on her shoulder. Sabra flicked the mouse it dropped on her shoulder back into the grass.

"Hey!" the cat protested. "It was work to catch that."

Sabra sighed. "Paelo, how many times to I have to tell you not to drop dead rodents on my shoulders?"

Paelomean flicked his tail. "At least once more than the number you've already said."

"Why must you always be so useless?"

"Because I'm a cat." Balancing precariously, Paelo began the serious business of scrubbing his ears. After a moment, he said, "you know, I get so lonely when you're in that other world."

Sabra snorted. "Of what, being small and irritating animals? I like you in your form there, thanks very much."

"I don't," Paelomean sniffed. "It's much harder to get you to do to what I say."

"I don't do what you say anyway."

"You should." The cat fell silent.

When they reached the river, Paelo leapt down from her shoulder and dropped into a hunting crouch, continuing his search for prey. Sabra sat on a rock near the water's edge and gazed out over the rushing river.

"You know," she said aloud, looking as though she were talking to the river. "I find it hard to believe how much trouble goes on here, when I'm in a place as peaceful as this."

_Only because this is a crossing point_, came Paelo's voice, in her head. _All of them are peaceful, except when they're destroyed. And I suppose some of the ones leading to unpleasant places are a bit more unpleasant. Just theory, of course, since we've never been to one. _

"What goes on out there, anyway?" Sabra asked, for she had never ventured beyond the river.

Paelo yawned. "Who knows?"

"Are there crossings on Earth to other places?" Sabra wondered, not bothering to persist. "And where do the other ones here go to?"

"To the first question, not that I know of," the cat mewed, twining himself around her legs before plopping unceremoniously to the ground. "And I didn't hear the other question, you'll have to repeat it."

"What do you mean, you didn't hear? Of course…" But she stopped, because Paelomean had fallen asleep.

Sabra tilted her head back, her lips twitching in a smile. "Stubborn little sowel." Still, Paelo had to have heard her question. He could have heard her if she had spoken so softly she couldn't hear herself, for he could hear even her thoughts. He was her sowel, and she was his familiar, united from the day they were born.

Sabra didn't know how long she sat gazing at the river before she turned back. She wasn't sure why she never ventured past the river. She knew there was a bridge about a mile East of here, though she had never seen it, but she had no desire to cross it. A small part of her mind whispered that it was because her mother had died here, but Sabra shook it away. Why would that discourage her? She had seen her mother before she crossed through the arch to her death. She had been there when she crossed. Her mother had known her time had come, young though she was. She had gone through the arch, and never come back. Surely her mother would have liked her daughter to venture into the land she had loved?

Shaking thoughts of her mother from her mind, Sabra stepped back through the arch.

Breakfast was just starting. Sabra met Meera on her way over, and listened with half an ear as Meera went on and on about some party that evening that Sabra hadn't even known about. She barely touched her breakfast and pointedly ignored the strong urge to go back through the arch, knowing that Paelomean once again wanted her to cross the river.

After breakfast, she and Meera wandered outside. North of the school, Sabra knew, a river rather like the one in her homeland ran. Beyond it lay a mountain range, and Sabra gazed in that direction for a moment, until Meera tugged on her sleeve and pulled her around toward the pond.

While Meera scampered about searching for frogs, Sabra sat on a rock and watched a couple of newts floating in the water. Below the edge of the water, Sabra could sense an injured frog that had narrowly escaped a hungry seagull. Without thinking, Sabra reached into its mind and healed the gash on its back from inside out, as though doing so was second nature to her.

Meera wandered over to her. "What's up? Why are you so gloomy?"

Sabra shrugged, and smiled slightly, wondering why herself.

"Let's go back to the dorms," Meera suggested. "I'll help you pick out something to wear to the party. It's a dance and all."

Sabra sighed and allowed herself to be dragged back up to the school, thinking through all her dress clothes. As far as she knew, she had nothing suitable. Maybe she could borrow something of Meera's. Quiet though she was, she loved dancing. When she was younger, her older sister, Mae, would play the lyre and a set of pipes or harmonica simultaneously, the pipes (or harmonica) supported by a framework around her neck so her hands were free to strum, while her many siblings, including Sabra's twin Ryna, danced to the music she made.

Meera took a while on deciding outfits for them both. Sabra ended up in a black skirt that flared when she twirled and a flattering red top that was laced in the back, showing several inches on tan skin criss-crossed with red and complimented her long black hair. Meera deftly added a red rose to her hair, which a tied partially up in the back, and a gold necklace and bracelet. Then she let Sabra apply her own make-up while she dug out a light pink dress for herself.

On the whole, with Meera fussing at every bit of her, it took Sabra over and hour to finish, and then she had to wait another half hour while Meera finished herself. She didn't mind, though. She liked being able to just sit and think for long periods at a time.

Finally, Meera came over and said, sternly, "This evening, if anyone asks you to dance, you say 'yes'. _In English_. Got that?"

Sabra smiled.

"And if you won't speak English," Meera plowed on. "Then don't say anything. No offense, but you'll scare people if you speak your language. It sounds—well, kind of snake-like."

Sabra appreciated that Meera made that connection. She knew most people in this world related serpents to dark and evil, but she knew that the Serpent was truly represented by the Sun.

By the time the music began that night, Sabra was feeling distinctly nervous. Meera had stationed her at a table with some lemonade and rushed off to dance with the first boy who caught her eye. Sabra was content to watch the musicians, playing on a raised stage in the middle of the large gym. One of them, a guy about her age, she guessed, with curly brown hair, didn't seem to be doing much. He was watching the lead guitarist strumming with great concentration.

When she could no longer resist the temptation to dance, she turned her eyes away from him and joined Meera and the boy she was dancing with. They fetched another guy for Sabra so quickly it was as though they had conjured him out of thin air. When he took her hands and twirled her so that her skirt flared at the edges, she startled. It was the curly-haired young man from the stage.

Without thinking, she asked in her native language, "Aren't you one of the musicians?"

To her complete astonishment, he answered in the same language. "Oh, you saw me?" She thought she saw curiosity, and maybe even recognition, in his bright green eyes, but he laughed through it. "I was studying them. Music, you know. I'm a Singer."

"Do you play an instrument?" she asked.

"Yes. Guitar, piccolo, and cello. And I sing, of course."

"Why aren't you playing with them? Aren't you in the band?" They weren't dancing very much, with just an odd twirl here and there.

He laughed again. He had a nice laugh, she noticed. "Oh, I'm not in the band," he said. "Why? Would you like to hear me sing?"

Sabra realized that she would, very much. He grinned, and disappeared into the crowd. The next minute, he was on the stag, speaking to the lead singer. The band singer was frowning. Then he nodded, and laughed loudly. He handed his guitar to the Singer and stepped away from the microphone. He spoke quickly to the drummer and other guitarist, and they started.

_Dancing! With tears in my eyes_

_Weeping for the memory_

_of a life gone by_

_Dancing! With tears in my eyes_

_Living out a memory _

_of a love that died_

He had an incredibly good voice. Sabra found herself dancing wildly along, with couples moving out of the way to watch her. She spun and leapt and got completely carried away. She wasn't aware that the entire assembly had formed a ring around her to watch her dance. The skirt flared and whirled, and her hair, with the red rose in it, flung outward dramatically.

She only noticed when another girl came out of the crowd and joined her. Her hair was as pale as Sabra's was dark, and her skirt was white, but she too had a rose in her hair—a white one—and her pink shirt was laced the same way Sabra's was. She matched Sabra's dance step for step. All of Sabra's awareness was focused on this strange girl and the Singer on the stage, who looked as immersed in his own music as she was.

Then the song ended, and the spell was broken. The Singer gave the guitar back and thanked a wordless rock star, and then took Sabra's arm and propelled her past the staring party-goers, with the pale girl following behind.

Outside the school, under the pale moonlight, the three clustered onto the first bench they came too. The curly-haired Singer looked across Sabra to the pale girl and said, still in the Tongue of the Serpent, "I think we found her, Ryna."

Sabra whipped around to stare at the pale girl so quickly she cricked her neck. "Ryna…?" The pale girl smiled tearfully, and held out her arms. Sabra hugged her tightly, tears spilling down her own cheeks.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered. She hadn't seen her twin for over five years.

"We came for you," Ryna said, pulling back and studying Sabra's face. "To bring you home. We need you."

Confused, Sabra said, "We who? Home through the arch, you mean?"

Ryna was shaking her head. "No, to the City. We, your siblings. We'll explain it all properly there. The important thing was to get you away from here."

"What—? Why—?"

Ryna took her arm and stood up. "Later. Where should we do this, Aaron?"

The Singer, Aaron, led them around the side of the school, up a slope to a large, flat hill. "This should do."

Ryna and Aaron raised their arms to the heavens. Feeling slightly odd, Sabra copied them. The next moment, she was rising straight into the air. Strangely, it did not alarm her. She closed her eyes and felt the wind rushing down at her. And suddenly, she was standing on the firm cement of a road.

She opened her eyes and looked around. She seemed to be on a main road in a small town, though in the distance she could the bigger and more crowded buildings of a city. She glanced around. Behind her was a wall of puffy cloud.

"Where are we?" she whispered. It seemed right to whisper, at midnight in a small, seemingly deserted town, though she assumed everyone was sleeping. "It's like a town in the clouds."

"That's exactly what it is," Ryna said, giving her an approving look. "We're on the outskirts of the City of Singers."

"And you live here?" Sabra said, awed.

Aaron pointed to a grand house on a knoll off to the right. "We live there."

Sabra looked around at him. "You, too?"

Ryna smiled. "Sabra, this is your older brother, Aaron."

Sabra blinked. "Brother? _Brother?_ He's—but—"

"Two years older than you," Ryna said. "In fact, you have rather a lot of sibling you've never met."

"I do?" Sabra said, nonplussed.

"You won't meet them now," Ryna said, leading them toward the big house. "They're all in the City, dancing and singing and playing their instruments. You'll meet them tomorrow. For now, I'll show you to your room."

"But—what's going on here? Why did you have to take me away from school?"

"We'll explain tomorrow," Aaron said, opening the door and motioning for them to go in past him. Sabra gazed around at the huge manor. Straight ahead was a magnificent, curved wooden stairway, and beyond it were the kitchens and dining room. To the right was what seemed to be a living room of some sort, and to the left were hooks for coats, a closet, and a bathroom.

Ryna and Sabra went upstairs so that Ryna could show her the room, but Aaron went back outside, saying that he wanted to join the Singing in the City.

"He doesn't look anything like me," Sabra ventured to say as they jogged up the stairs. Ryna was pale and fair-haired, but the rest of her features were identical to Sabra's.

Ryna shrugged. "We all look different. It's just our Singer heritage."

"You're a Singer too?"

She nodded.

Struck by a sudden thought, Sabra asked, "Then am _I _a Singer?"

Ryna hesitated. "Well, no. That's why you haven't grown up here like the rest of us."

Sabra sighed and resigned herself to waiting until the following day to get her explanation. Ryna showed her into a nice, light blue-walled room, with a big bed, a closet, and a desk. The walls were decorated with tapestries and posters of past Singers, instruments, dancers, and animals. A large, ornate guitar was propped in one corner.

"I hope you like it," Ryna said, turning on the lamp on the desk. "I put your old guitar in here, if you want to play it. There are books in the closet if you want, and some clothes we got for you. They might seem a little strange, but they're the style here." She smiled at Sabra and left, closing the door behind her.

Sabra sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the mattress sink with her weight. She reached up and pulled the rose out of her hair, turning it over in her hand and knowing that her life was going to take a big turn.


	2. Chapter 2: A WellDressed Stranger

2

A Well-Dressed Stranger

"Wearing fancy or formal clothes keeps you prepared. It's a mental thing."

Sabra woke the next morning to what seemed to be a mountain of dishes crashing somewhere under the ceiling, and someone cursing. Grinning, she swung herself out of bed and trotted downstairs—which took her a minute to find, as the upper corridor seemed to be in a circle—to the kitchen, where Mae stood with a saucepan in her hand and several pots at her feet.

"Ryna, I need you to—" she began, turning around. Then she spotted Sabra, and her eyes went wide. "My God—Sabra!" Dropping her pan with a loud clang, she hugged Sabra tightly. Sabra pulled back and surveyed her older sister.

Feigning disappointment, she said, "I don't think you've grown at all." I had been a family joke, for Mae was barely five feet tall at twenty-four years.

Mae swatted her playfully. "Well, _you've _certainly grown. How tall are you now?"

"Five feet, five inches," Sabra said.

Just then another girl rushed into the room. "Sabe!"

The days were past when Sabra could scoop up her little sister Mari, but she somehow managed to catch the eleven-year-old as she charged straight for Sabra's arms. "Hey, Mari! I've missed all you guys! How's the violin coming?"

"Great!" Mari said, beaming. "Hey, I Ryn said you've given up English. How come?"

Sabra shifted uncomfortably. "Well, that is…"

"If it's because of mother," Mae said unexpectedly. "There's no need to worry. She's alive."

Sabra whipped around, dropping Mari unceremoniously. "She what?"

"We'll explain when the rest get here," Mae said gravely. "Mari, go round some of them up." Mari nodded and bounded away just as a tall youth wandered in.

"Sabe, this is Aaron's twin, Ayden."

Sabra shook Ayden's hand. "So—wait—how many siblings do I have, exactly?" Sabra asked apprehensively.

Mae exchanged looks with Ayden. "Er—thirteen, actually."

Sabra gaped. "But—I thought I had five…who are the other eight?"

"You know most of your younger siblings," Mae said. "Mari, Ryna, and Alex. There's also Cade, he's thirteen. And you know me, and now Aaron and Ayden, both seventeen, and also Raidon. Then Kai, who's sixteen, Roy, twenty, Kylie, Aaron and Ayden's triplet, and Marta, twenty-two."

Sabra blinked. "That's a lot of people."

Ayden grinned. "We don't expect you to remember all our names."

Sabra tried not to make her relief too obvious. Mari reentered the room with Alex, the boy Sabra assumed was Cade, Ryna, and Aaron behind her. "The rest are already in the City," she said.

"Well, we may as well go after them," Mae said. "We need everybody here when we tell Sabra. Ryna, go help Sabra find some appropriate clothes." She was eying Sabra's red shirt and jeans with distaste, though she herself was still in her nightshirt.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Sabra demanded, but Ryna was leading her away.

"Not to worry," she said. "We just don't where that kind of stuff here, that's all."

Picking out clothes with Ryna was nearly as bad as it was with Meera.

"Why does it matter which _underwear_ I have on?" she asked, exasperated. "It's not like anyone's going to _see _them."

Ryna gave her a serious look over the top of sleeveless pink shirt she was holding up to Sabra. "Somebody might."

"What do you —Oh!" Sabra turned red. "Ryna!"

When Ryna was through with her, she was dressed in the pink top with a short black skirt, and some strange black cloth spread from her back to faster onto her wrists by black bracelets, making them look almost like wings.

"But you can see half my stomach!" Sabra protested, turning around and peering at her back. "And what are these?" she added, waving her arms so the black clothes swooped around.

"We call them _tsubasa_. They're great for dancing."

"But we're not going dancing!"

"This whole City is dancing and singing," Ryna said. "People are always dancing here. In fact, Singing and Dancing keep this City in the air. Dancers are rarer than Singers, but there are a few. You're one. Come on, now."

"I'm a Dancer?" Sabra said as she followed her twin down the stairs.

"Later," Ryna called airily, and rounded up the rest of her siblings for their trip into the actual City.

Feeling self-conscious in her new outfit, Sabra followed her siblings into the City of Singers. It was like no place she had ever been before. The City was full of golden-white buildings, wide streets of horse-drawn buggies, and music. Every so often they passed a square full of people dancing, singing, and strumming. Seeing other people with _tsubasa_ like her own made her feel a bit more comfortable, though she thought she would never grow used to the feeling of looking around, beyond the golden domes, and seeing clouds, knowing she was high above the earth.

They walked for some times, finally coming to a halt at an inn with a small bar in front.

"You three wait here," Mae said, ushering Sabra, Ryna, and Aaron inside. "We won't be interrupted here. Wait for us to come back with the others."

"Why do they all have to come?" Sabra asked.

"Tradition," Mae said with a smile, and left.

So Sabra and her siblings sat around a table in the small, dark room. The bartender kept shooting them annoyed looks as they made no effort to order anything.

"Is everyone here a Singer or a Dancer?" Sabra asked, peering around at the customers.

"No," Aaron said. "Most of them are Singers, of course, but there are some normal people who live here, mostly people who marry Singers, you know. Then there are the Rangers who pass through here, and occasionally we get demons. The Council used to have trouble sorting the good ones from the bad." He leaned back and stretched. "Luckily, they have a simple test now."

Sabra nodded and arranged her _tsubasa_ behind her like cushions. Se was just wondering whether to get a drink just to stop the bartender from glowering when Aaron leaned forward and said,

"See that man in the corner there?" Sabra turned her eyes to the shadowy, cloaked figure sitting alone in the corner of the bar. His hood was up, and the shadows his face. "He stops in here from time to time, and nobody knows who or what he is. Most think he's a Ranger, though he never shows his face and no one's seen a sword on him—that's usually the sign that someone's a Ranger, if they've got a sword and can't sing for their lives. But there are some who say he's a sorcerer. Rosy—one of are cousins, you know—said she once saw him turn into a dragon. 'Course, she also said he stole Katrina's sowel, which we all know is perfect nonsense, the girl just decided she didn't want to get married after all. But he is a bit mysterious, really, since everybody else here all know each other. We're like one huge extended family. So it's strange no one knows anything about him. They call him Falcon."

"Why?" Sabra asked.

Aaron shrugged. "That's all I know."

Ryna frowned. "But it wasn't only Rosy who said that about the sowels. Andy went a little weird for a couple weeks before he went missing."

"How is it even possible to steal a sowel?" Sabra wondered. "They're not physical beings in this world, are they?"

"They were in the past," Aaron said darkly. "But Mae will tell you about that all when she gets back."

Just then a small crowd of people entered. Sabra looked around to see her other siblings pulling up chairs.

"Oh, good, you're here," Ryna said. "Aaron was just telling Sabe a bit about Falcon."

"Right," Mae said. "Well, let's do this quickly. Being a Singer," she directed at Sabra, "is more than having a talent for music. It doesn't just mean you have a good voice or can play harmonica naturally." Ayden took out a harmonica and played a few bars of music as an example. Mae waved it away. "It's like it's own kind of magic. Now. _Aastæveristikemaera." _She said the word beautifully, smooth and melodious. "Where our sowels are in body. It's not a different world. It's the past."

A moment of silence greeted her words. Then Sabra said, "How do you mean?"

"When you travel through the arch," Mae explained, "Or any crossing point, you go back in time. The timeframe you've been going to is before civilization. You see, we're all from the past, all different time periods. We're guardians of time, space, light, earth, and music. Long ago, our sowels always lived in body. But someone—or something' began to steal them, and slowly they receded into their familiars' bodies. This City we live in—on, actually—is like a protection zone. Singers use their powers to protect the Five we stand for: Time, Space, Light, Earth, and Music. Our family, in particular, stands against It, the being or creature that was stealing sowels."

"How do we do that?" Sabra asked, her curiosity aroused.

"Well, It used to be restrained by some ancient sorcery," Mae said. "And the older of us have been trying to find out what that sorcery was so we can retie the bindings that used to hold It, because it somehow broke those ties and it now loose and searching for more sowels, though we don't know why. It's been sending minions to lure the unsuspecting into the past to take their sowels, and for now we've been destroying as many of these as we can. The weaker ones, a single Singer alone can kill, but some of the stronger ones take the strength of all twelve of us, and even then some escape."

"But why doesn't It just take the sowels of people in the past?" Sabra interrupted.

"You're thinking like an earthling," Mae said warningly. "And not a Singer. Or a Dancer. To normal people, the past is something over and done with, that can't be accessed. But to us, time is something that's ever changing. Much of our work is in the past, and Dancers can even sometimes reach possible futures." Mae hesitated, as though unsure of what o say next.

"In a nutshell," Raidon broke in, "We protect those five elements from Its minions, and we need your help for the stronger ones. For some reason, It Itself hasn't come out into the open. It must know we're not yet strong enough to defeat It. We've been doing a fair bit of research on It, too, and from what we can tell, It's a good million or so years older than us. And the longer power stews, the more powerful it gets."

Sabra frowned. "But I don't get—I mean, I sort of understand what you mean by using music and singing and dancing to use power, but I don't understand _how _to do it. I mean, I can dance fairly well, but how o I use that to do, well, magic, if that's what it is?"

"You could call it that," Mae said. "As for how to do it, some of your technique will need training, but most of it will be instinct."

"And also," Sabra said, remembering something. "You said It likes to steal sowels. But Ryna and Aaron were saying that Falcon might do that too…I'm confused."

"Well," Mae confessed, "er, for a time, we thought Falcon might _be _It…a little far-fetched, and we have no real proof of course, but we're getting a bit desperate…"

"Well, anyway," Ryna said briskly, standing. "That about covers it. I'm off for some dancing. Anyone care to join me?"

Sabra and most of her siblings volunteered to escort Ryna to the nearest dancing square, where Ayden whipped out his harmonica and joined the other Singers in the corner, starting up a lively tune. Roy, Sabra's eldest brother, pulled a ukulele seemingly from nowhere and followed him. Her other siblings danced into the crowd. Sabra noticed with amusement that Ryna was by far the most popular girl, and guys kept getting pushed aside so someone else could have a turn dancing with her. She felt a little left out, however, because everybody seemed to know each other. Then Raidon took her by the hand, spun her under his arm, and turned her over to the next boy he saw. Sabra soon forgot about being new and lost herself in the dance. Everyone seemed to know her, anyway. Soon many boys were asking "Ryna's twin" to dance, and Sabra laughingly went with them, swirling her _tsubasa_ to their fullest flare. Finally, exhausted, she, Ryna, and Marta collapsed onto a cream-colored marble bench to rest.

"When do we go back to the house?" Sabra asked, fanning herself with a _tsubasa_.

Ryna looked surprised. "Probably not for a few days." She leaned back against the white-gold wall behind her. Seeing Sabra's puzzled look, she explained, "We Singers usually stay out for several days at a time, you know, awake the whole time with just rests like these. Then we sleep straight for twenty-four hours or more." She smiled at Sabra's look of confusion. "It's hard to enjoy a few days at a time if you're unconscious for half of it!"

Sabra had never thought of it that way before, but being new to the schedule, the idea of staying awake for more than a few more hours was a bit daunting.

"You don't have to stay out if you don't want, of course," Ryna said, understanding. "You remember where the house is, right?"

Sabra nodded. There was a moment of silence. Then Ryna flashed Sabra a grin and whirled back into the crowd, grabbing the hands of the first boy she met. Grinning herself, Sabra followed suit.

It was when she glanced up at the sky and estimated she had about half an hour's worth of daylight left that Sabra decided to start home, deducting that it would be easier to find the house in the light. It took her but a minute to find the street she thought was the one they had followed into the City, and from there, she figured it would be easy to get back home. But she soon realized it wasn't quite that simple, for ten minutes later she found herself in a narrow alleyway, and perplexed as to where she was.

"Lost?" said a cool, slightly hoarse voice behind her.

Sabra turned around. A tall, fair-haired young man stood there in a magnificent blue and gold costume. "I—" She began, but suddenly he pushed her back and down against the wall of the alley and crouched protectively over her, looking over his shoulder.

"Quiet!" he hissed. Sabra froze and strained her ears, but she couldn't hear anything unusual. The young man, however, took her hand and pulled her to her feet, saying quietly, "walk with me and act naturally. I'm being followed. I'll bring you back to your house."

Sensing his urgency, Sabra walked stiffly beside him, her tiny hand enveloped in his not-much-bigger one, biting back her "what's going on?" For some strange reason, she found herself admiring the several gold bands on his fingers, each with a different colored gem. As they turned down another side alley, the youth sped up his walk, as though trying to act normal and get away from their pursuers as quickly as possible. Sabra trotted to keep up—and then they were running, he almost pulling her along as they dashed down the narrow streets walled by tall white-gold buildings. She felt his hand slid down around her waist.

"They're in front of us too!" he called. "Hang on—we're going up!" And suddenly, they were shooting skyward with no visible means of support. Sabra instinctively shrank against the fair-haired youth and buried her face in the soft, shiny blue material covering his chest. The open blue and gold cloak of the costume wrapped around them like a shield, leaving only their heads free. Sabra gritted her teeth against the sharp ascent…and then, quite suddenly, forward over the buildings, though at only a slightly slower pace.

"Would you rather walk then fly?" the young man called over the wind rushing in their ears.

"Uh, n-no, this is fine," Sabra stammered, suddenly aware that she was completely pressed against him, with his arm around her waist. Ryna's remark about underwear was ringing in her ears, and she was sure her face had turned bright red. Luckily, her escort didn't seem so notice, and she had to admit she was enjoying their rooftop flight.

"Can you point out your house from here?" he asked as they topped a golden dome. There was a spectacular view of the City behind them, ad ahead she could see her family's mansion.

"It's that big one off to the right," she said, and they sailed, rather more slowly and gracefully than before, down off the golden rooftops and over the outskirts of the City, to land elegantly on the upper porch of the mansion. The costumed youth spun her out of his extravagant cloak and bowed. "I thank you for that marvelous flight," he said generously, and then, more seriously, "they're in the area now, so stay in your house. I'll draw them off."

"Why were they following you—whatever they were?" Sabra asked, not wanting him to leave, though she wasn't sure why.

He smiled thinly. "There are many people who would pay in more than gold for my blood."

"But why? Who? Who are you?" she asked desperately, but he just smiled, stepped backward over the porch railing—and was gone. With a cry, Sabra peered over the rail and into the darkness above, but there was no trace of the young man, only a streak of silvery blue that crossed the night sky.


End file.
